When You Just Can't Take It Anymore
They say customer service is a two way transaction. You, as the employee, should provide excellent service to the customer, who should be polite and thankful. Anyone that's eaten at an Applebee's on Sunday Night Football day know that customers aren't always completely cooperative.
It's not just people in the service industry, either, who have a tough time maintaining a civil, professional, non-laughing outlook. Plenty of other professions with enough pressure, can cause even the most solid individual to crack. Reddit user, u/AccomplishedStory, asked: When did you have the most difficult time "staying professional"?
The Sarcasm Is High
About 6 months ago, I'm sitting in a meeting with high level Microsoft reps along with all of the management and directors of our IT department. Essentially, it was a meeting where Microsoft was trying to sing the praises of their InTune product. I had been demoing internally for three months and they wanted to get my feedback.
So I gave it to them.
They were expecting me to come out and announce my love for it, but I gave them my honest feedback with many reasons and examples about why it wasn't right for our organization. After about 10 minutes, the lead InTune guy stated talking over me and changing the subject.
The meeting ends and I start getting ready to leave when the InTune guy hands me his card and says something about looking forward to working together. I took his card and involuntarily said "Oh boy." In front of my boss...and my director...and all these Microsoft managers.
I didn't sleep that night. By far the most unprofessional moment of my career.
Oh, I Think She Knows
I was helping a man make a bear for his wife's birthday, and he wanted to record his voice to put inside of it. Let me preface this by saying this dude was like 6'7" black dude that was also a cop. This large man kneels down at the tiny ass 'sound station' and says into the mic in his deep ass voice "you know you the sexiest thang I ever seen in my life, right?". I tried my hardest not to lose it. I set up the sound to download, turned around, and held myself together as best I could. I lost it as soon as he left.
Edit: it was this bear
What's The Opposite Of A Helicopter Parent?
I had a student miss 68 days of my class in a 90 day semester. The reason she missed was because my class was "too early" in the morning. The school calls the house every day a kid is absent in any class, and sends letters. Grades are available online at any time, and letters are sent home saying when kids are in danger of failing.
The child, shockingly, did not pass my class. She ended up with about a 40 - passing grade is a 70.
The mom called me, after finals saying that I should pass the kid because she was "pretty close" to passing and that's pretty damn good for missing that many days. She said that if she had come every day she absolutely would have passed, so I needed to pass her because Mom wanted her to graduate on time. She would not stop arguing with me although there was no way in hell I was going to pass the kid.
I've never had to restrain myself so much from cursing at someone or just flat out hanging the phone up on her.
He's Got His Preferences On His Sleeve
I was working at an internet provider when someone came in to pay his bill. Now, I've seen a lot of ridiculous last names and I've kept a straight face, but this time I couldn't help it.
His last name was "Assmann." I broke up laughing in front of him and apologized profusely. He was pretty chill about it and was like, "It got me a lot of action in high school."
For the record, he pronounced it "AHHS-men."
They Probably Didn't Know?
When a parent of one of my students said "tick tock, you don't have forever" referring to me having children... a week after I had a miscarriage.
When You Gotta Let It Go
I used to work at a university and one day we had a staff Christmas party. The president acts all friendly and even rolls up his sleeves to serve ice cream to the peons.
Anyways he was up on stage giving an inspirational end of the year speech when he rips a massive fart. There was dead silence, but I couldn't handle it and just burst out laughing. Everybody else followed suit and for a good two minutes the entire room was dying from laughter.
I felt really bad because he recently had some king of stomach surgery and probably couldn't control it, but goddamn was it hilarious.
When It's Not Just You
Oh jeez. A guy had an interview with my company and my coworkers and I were looking at his resume beforehand. We noticed that there were several spelling errors, including spelling 'project' as 'roject'.
So the guy comes in and I'm (along with a coworker) interviewing him, giving technical questions and whatnot (he wasn't doing that well). The guy's back is to the rest of my office and the wall is glass (so see through, obviously).
In the middle of the interview, a coworker on the outside looks at me and slowly raises a piece of paper from his desk, facing it towards me. On it is a single word in capital letters: "ROJECT".
I had to excuse myself to "get a drink of water" when in reality I needed to catch my breath to prevent myself from cracking up.
Just Listen. Everyone Has A Story.
I worked for the prosecuting attorney and we were wrapping up a murder case. It wasn't a particularly horrific, or even surprising, murder. One local drug dealer murdered another over a dispute of some kind. The deceased was ambushed outside his home and died in his driveway. Not a lot of people cared. As I said, he was a local drug dealer and what we called a frequent flyer in our courts.
Still, the murderer wanted a jury trial - as is his right. And part of my job was to take the victim impact statement of the victim's mother. She was a small, thin woman with dyed strawberry blonde hair and wrinkles in her face from age and a lot of time in the sun. She looked a good 10 years older than she was on her best day. This was not her best day.
She and her husband came to my office for help writing their statements to be read to the judge at sentencing. Her husband choked up almost immediately and had to leave the room. Mother was having a difficult time putting her words down so I told her to just talk and I would type what she said.
She sat in a chair behind me and talked about her dead son for a good ten minutes. He was a funny boy. He liked to play jokes. He loved his Momma and always greeted her with a big hug. As she spoke, she held her arms slightly crossed over her heart and rocked back and forth as if she were rocking a baby to sleep. I thought she must be remembering what it was like to hold her baby boy (he was the oldest) and she was trying again to cradle him in her arms where he was safe and loved.
I cried a lot in that job. But I didn't cry then. I kept my fingers on that keyboard and I wrote exactly what she said. My heart broke for her in a way that it rarely broke for another parent of a murdered child. But I kept my composure and let her speak.
How Do You Even Keep A Straight Face?
We have meetings on accident prevention every time a major accident in our company happens. Every time.
Couple years ago a man straining too hard taking a poo passed out and fell forward leaving a large gash on his forehead and a concussion.
Imagine sitting around with 8 other people discussing how to prevent head injuries while on the toilet.
What...A...Human? Is That The Word?
I'm a wedding planner. We had an unexpected death in the family. Our 6 month old nephew had passed away in his sleep. I knew the funeral was going to be the day my clients upcoming wedding. I gave her a call to explain the situation. She's clearly not paying attention to the call or the words I'm speaking because I hear her laughing with friends in the background. I get irritated and tell her I'll call her later. I call back that night and again tell her what has happened and that I'd be sending an assistant to cover for me so I can attend the funeral. She tells me that I need to send my assistant to the funeral and that I better be at her wedding. It took me a few seconds, but I calmly stated that I'd be sending her money back and that no one would be covering for me. Nicest way I've ever said piss off.
...I've been doing this for a while. I've seen a drunk grandma heil Hitler in a room full of Jewish guests. I've seen a bride kiss an ex boyfriend while the groom was in the bathroom. One attempted suicide. One very expensive and very short wedding. However, the majority of my clients are amazing. Still, sometimes there are just horrible people in this world. The good thing is I've gotten much better at spotting them before we get to far.
H/T: Reddit